


Grin and Bear It

by TheFreakWithTheWings



Series: Mama Bear [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, F/M, Gen, Mustafar, Padmé Amidala Lives, werebear!Padmé
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 18:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6294724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFreakWithTheWings/pseuds/TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught in the thrall of the Dark Side, Anakin attacked Padmé, accidentally unleashing her wild side. Literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grin and Bear It

**Author's Note:**

> And I do mean literally. See tags.
> 
> This is very much self-indulgence. 
> 
> Stream-bears are the Nubian equivalent of grizzly bears, except they are pack animals.
> 
> And, yes, the title of every fic in this series is going to have the word "bear" in it.

Padmé hadn’t Changed at all since she learned about her pregnancy.

She didn’t do it all that much before then, not when she spent so much of her time on Coruscant, where people have such a strong distrust of beings with more than one form. 

Sometimes she wondered what her friends would say if they knew that she wasn’t just human. She hoped that they would remember her, that they would look beyond the stereotype of the feral monster that Shifters have been forced into. Sometimes she thought that Anakin had guessed that she was a Shifter. He never said anything though, so she never said anything either. She would have told him, but he had mentioned that a Shifter had lived among the Tuskens that had killed his mother. The way he spoke of them stilled her tongue.

There was lore, among her family, that if the mother could resist Changing for the entire pregnancy, then the children would be stuck in one form. Padmé wanted that for her child. She wanted them to live free from lies and secrets, to not have to conceal their true nature from all but their closest family.

What non-Shifters didn’t realize was that having two forms didn’t make them animals or monsters; it was a survival instinct like fight or flight, just enhanced by genes or the Force or something. Padmé had learned to control it even better than most; her life had been in danger often enough that if she Changed on instinct her secret would have been out within the first year of her term as Queen of Naboo.

Now though, as Anakin glared at her with hate-filled yellow eyes and his grip on the Force choked the breath from her lungs, Padmé closed her eyes and Changed on purpose.

Padmé’s second form was that of a stream-bear, one of the few terrestrial predators of Naboo. Her body expanded outward and upward, her hands becoming paws and growing claws, her nose elongating into a snout, brown fur covering her entire body, her ears moving up and back. Her clothes were shredded by her Change.

Padmé had never had a chance to realize how small and weak her husband appeared when she was in her second form. Appearances, of course, were deceiving.

A wave of fury swept over her. Everything she had worked for had been destroyed, and the man in front of her had actively participated in its destruction and then had the audacity to call _her_ the traitor. However, Padmé had learned how to control and conceal her emotions, so all she did was drop down to all fours and _roar_ her anger and anguish at Anakin.

Anakin’s Force grip on her throat slipped in his shock, and Padmé took the chance to run back to her ship. She barely even noticed Obi-Wan as she passed him.

Some of the stereotypes about Shifters had a grain of truth to them. For example, it was claimed that Shifters succumbed to their animal instincts when they Changed. This was false, but it was true that her instincts were a little stronger in her second form. Right now, her strongest instinct was to protect her child, and the only way to do that was to get _away_.

Away from Anakin, away from Obi-Wan, away from Mustafar and its rivers of lava. Her child wasn’t safe around any of them.

Padmé changed back once she got onto the ship, naked and sobbing, her baby kicking frantically.

“Padmé, no!” Anakin cried from outside the ship. The sound of a lightsaber igniting reached her ears, and then another. “Come back!”

Someone bounded up the ramp, their boots thumping with every step, then hit the button to raise it back up.

Anakin howled in outrage, but his cries came from farther away. Obi-Wan was the one who had boarded then, not her deranged husband.

He carefully draped his cloak over her as he passed on his way to the cockpit. Padmé clutched it around herself as she listened to the hum of the ship starting up and taking off, taking simple comfort from its warmth and allowing her tears to run out. She carefully pushed herself off the ground and joined Obi-Wan in the copilot’s seat. 

Padmé stared avidly at the ceiling so as not to glance down at Mustafar to catch a glimpse of Anakin as they flew away. She also felt a little embarrassed, both because Obi-Wan caught her crying and because she had been naked whilst doing so. 

“Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asked carefully.

“I-I think so,” Padmé rasped, her words scraping against her bruised and aching throat. She coughed a few times, then looked over at him. “We need to find a neutral med center though.”

“Yes, of course. Will it be safe?” he asked, plugging coordinates into the navcomp. The ship then leapt into hyperspace.

“Because I’m a Shifter, you mean?” she asked defensively.

“Well, I was thinking more of the bounties each of us are sure to have on our heads soon, but that works too.”

“The government is in chaos right now,” Padmé said, thinking out loud. “It will probably be a while before anyone realizes that you survived and I’ve disappeared, and it will take them even longer to connect the two.”

“Unless Vader tells his Master,” Obi-Wan pointed out.

“Vader? Who’s that?” Padmé asked.

Obi-Wan sighed, grief making him look far older than he was. “Darth Vader is the name that was given to Anakin when he Fell by Sidious, the Sith Lord we’ve been searching for since the Invasion of Naboo.”

Like lightning striking metal, Padmé realized the identity of Sidious. “It’s Chance- I mean Emperor Palpatine, isn’t it. He said he was attacked by the Jedi, and he’s always been close to Anakin. It makes sense.”

“It does, unfortunately,” Obi-Wan sighed. “The Jedi Council was suspicious of all the power he was accumulating in the Senate, but we thought that the Sith Lord might have been a member of his staff, one of his allies.”

“The Jedi weren’t the only ones to think so. I was part of a group of Senators, the Delegation of 2000, who were trying to relieve Palpatine of some of his powers. We - ow,” she winced, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “How long until we reach that med center?”

“A few hours,” Obi-Wan said.

"That's good. Everything I've read suggests that labor can last for hours or days once the contractions start. We have plenty of time," Padmé said.

"You're in labor!" Obi-Wan squeaked.

0o0o0

They arrived at Polis Massa three hours later. Padmé’s water broke at the end of the second hour, after which Obi-Wan had commed Yoda and Bail to let them know where they were going and why. The pain from the contractions was enough that Padmé would partially Change some of her extremities. She accidentally shredded the sleeves of Obi-Wan’s cloak that way.

Finally, after six hours of increasingly agonizing pain, she gave birth to first Leia and then, to everyone’s surprise, Luke. 

Back on board Padmé’s ship, Obi-Wan cradled Leia while Padmé fed Luke as they all figured out what to do next.

“Strong in the Force, your children are,” Yoda said. “Split up, they must be, to conceal their growing bond.”

“I can take Leia,” Bail volunteered. “Breha and I have always wanted a daughter.”

Padmé huffed a silent laugh, not looking up from her son’s tiny face. “I’m a Shifter, Bail, and my children will be as well. All it will take is one loss of control, which children don’t have in great quantities anyways, and Anakin will know that she is his.”

“Darth Vader, you mean,” Yoda chided.

“There is still good in him,” Padmé insisted. “And therefore I will call my husband by his name, Anakin, and not the name a Sith Lord gave to him.”

“Hmm,” was all Yoda had to say in response to that.

“If I may,” Obi-Wan began, “I could go with them, Master Yoda, and keep their presence in the Force suppressed until they are old enough to learn how to shield.”

“Our last hope, they are. Ever vigilant, you must be,” Yoda cautioned.

Obi-Wan bowed his head over Leia’s sleeping form. “Of course. I believe we should go to Tatooine. The Empire would never think to look for us there.”

“Not to mention Anakin hates it with a passion,” Padmé said.

“Hmm. To Dagobah, I will go. Live in exile, I must,” Yoda announced.

“I can fly you there,” Bail offered. “It isn’t too much of a detour between here and Alderaan.”

“Stay safe, Bail. The Empire will be watching all members of the Delegation closely for signs of a rebellion,” Padmé said.

“Padmé, my dear, I have no doubt that you already have plans to create a rebellion of some kind, so I won’t do anything until you contact me,” Bail promised, smiling wryly. “Until we meet again.”

Bail and Yoda left after that, and Padmé and Obi-Wan didn’t linger long on Polis Massa either. Fifteen minutes after Bail’s ship jumped to hyperspace, the new family was on its way to Tatooine and the start of their new lives as fugitives.


End file.
